To those of us on the outside, life in a polygamous community – notorious Bountiful, B.C., for instance - is an aberration. But if you’ve grown up in such a bell-jar setting, you’d view the community as entirely normal. Understanding that process of normalization is important
Wednesday’s NACO concert had all the makings of a jaded yawnfest: a tame, old-fashioned program featuring a Rossini overture, a Mozart piano concerto, and a later Beethoven symphony. But with the explosively energetic Xian Zhang’s at the helm, this performance was more like a jolt
Typically, I write about art in Ottawa, but a person has to hit the road once in a while, which I did recently, and rode the railway to Montreal, New York and Philadelphia. Here are three special exhibitions to consider for your spring/early-summer travels. Napoleon: Art
Who would have thought that the National Gallery of Canada would now be at the centre over a tug of war with the Quebec government? But that's what appears to be happening. As reported in Le Devoir, Quebec's minister of culture, Marie Montpetit, has asked her department
The new NAC director of communications is moving out of Rideau Hall to an office by the Rideau Canal. Annabelle Cloutier, who is the director of communications and public affairs with the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, will take up her new post
A long list of 25 artists from five regions of Canada will be considered for the 2018 Sobey Art Award. The winner of the award, which goes to an emerging Canadian artist, will receive $100,000 from the Sobey Art Foundation. Four other shortlisted artists will get $25,000 each.
As a child, Xian Zhang started studying piano with her mother on an instrument built by her father. By age 11, she was in the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. At age 16, she switched to conducting. "The real starting point (of her conducting career)
Under a wave of mounting public pressure for more transparency, the National Gallery of Canada has revealed, after gaining permission, the name of the mystery painting it is seeking to purchase with money raised by the sale of La Tour Eiffel by Marc Chagall. As
Ludwig van Beethoven said of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 "we shall never be able to do anything like that." Johannes Brahms hailed it as a "masterpiece of art and full of inspired ideas." Louis Lortie would concur. He has played the piece before with NACO on a
A dozen years ago, when the Royal Winnipeg Ballet last brought Mark Godden’s Dracula to Ottawa, I found the ballet to be all style and no substance. The beautiful sets and costumes couldn’t hide the work’s flaws: irredeemably bloated, silly, pedantic, and, save for the
